War Memorials

[HPL2008]

I live in a small town out of Sydney and I was happy to come across a small memorial near an old church local to me.
On the one side there are the FOUR local men who sacrificed all in the great war and on the opposite is a plaque to the FIVE who did the same in WW2.

Nine men who a tiny rural community thought so much of that they erected this obelisk to their memory...... are we in the 21st century REALLY a better people than them? .... In a world going mad, sometimes I wonder.

Here is something of an equivalent to it.

These two memorials are in the community of Piflas, which is part of the municipality of Ergolding, bordering my hometown Landshut.

At the outbreak of the Great War, some 20 families lived in the community. 33 men from these families went to war; 6 never came home.

The Pollner family was hit very hard: Two of the three brothers died at Verdun, with Jakob killed on 25 June 1916 and Johann the very next day on 26 June 1916. Two weeks later, the third brother, Max, met his fate at the Somme on 11 July 1916.
The other three men were Georg Meindl and Sebastian Biberger who died in Flanders and Josef Kufer who fell at the Nous Notre Dame.

In the 1920s, their names were commemorated with a plaque in a small chapel.

In 1955, a new war memorial was erected which now bore the names of the local fallen in both World Wars. The names of another 21 dead and 18 missing in WW2 joined those of the six who died in WW1.

When the chapel was demolished in the 1970s, the plaque found a temporary new home in a local school and later went into storage at the town hall. When the war memorial was renovated in 2015 and its surroundings remodelled, the old plaque was brought out of storage and affixed to a stone near the memorial.






(Background information from: Kriegerdenkmal in Piflas - einst und jetzt - Markt Ergolding )

A bit of trivia: The artist who created the stone for the 1955 memorial is the sculptor (and WW2 veteran) Prof. Fritz Koenig, who is also the creator of The Sphere which once stood at the World Trade Center.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sphere

[HPL2008]

I just got back from a holiday trip which took me to Hamburg and then via Kiel on a Baltic Sea/North Sea cruise with visits to Oslo and Copenhagen. As always, I took snapshots of some war memorials.

First, the Hamburger Ehrenmal [Hamburg Memorial]. One side has the inscription "Vierzigtausend Söhne der Stadt ließen ihr Leben für Euch 1914 - 1918" ["Forty thousand sons of the city gave their lives for you 1914 - 1918"]; the other side shows a grieving mother and child.

Commemorating Hamburg's fallen in WW1, the original memorial was finished in 1932. Under Nazi rule, it was removed and replaced by a statue of a rising eagle in 1938. The memorial was reconstructed after WW2 and now dedicated to be the official memorial for the dead of both world wars.

[CARL]

As usual, nicely photographed and well presented HPL. Thank you.

Carl

[HPL2008]

A memorial to HMS Devonshire in Oslo's City Hall. HMS Devonshire took Norway's royal family to their exile in the UK and brought the crown prince back again a few days after the German capitulation:








The "Knus Nasism" ["Crush Nazism"] Memorial to the Norwegian resistance organization of the Osvald-gruppen [Osvald Group] in front of Oslo's central railway station. It depicts a hammer smashing a Swastika. On the monument's base are two plaques, one for dead Osvald members, the other one for personnel of the Norwegian State Railways killed in WW2. The inscription on the front of the base is a quote by Asbjørn Sunde "Det var verd å kjempe for friheten for alle land, for alle klasser, for alle mennesker" ["It was worth fighting for freedom—for all nations, for all races, for all classes, for all people]:










Memorial at Akershus Fortress commemorating 42 Norwegians executed at that spot, whose names appear on a separate plaque. The executions took place in February and March 1945. The inscription says "De kjempet de falt de gav oss alt. På dette sted ble norske patrioter skutt under krigen 1940 1945" ["They fought they fell they gave us everything. On this site Norwegian patriots were shot during the war 1940-1945"]

[HPL2008]

Finally, on to Copenhagen.

The Mindeankeret [Memorial Anchor] in Nyhavn, commemorating the more than 1,700 Danish seamen of the Danish Navy, merchant marine and Allied forces who lost their lives in WW2. This is an actual antique anchor manufactured in 1872 which was used on the frigate Fyn:




Memorial to the fallen Danish soldiers in the Allied forces in Churchillparken [Churchill Park]:




The next two are located at the waterfront, not far from the famous "Little Mermaid" statue. First, the memorial stone to the Korean War era hospital ship Jutlandia. Unveiled in 1990, the stone is a block of Korean granite.
Seen in the background is the frigate HDMS Peder Skram (now a museum ship) which in 1982 was involved in the (in)famopus accidental launch of a Harpoon missile during maneuvers in the Kattegat; the missile destroyed four summer cottages and damaged another 130 buildings in the vicinity.




My personal favorite of this trip is the impressive Søfartsmonumentet [Sea Faring Monument], commemorating the Danish Merchant Navy Seamen who lost their lives in WW1. The winged figure on top depicts "Mindet" [the memory]:

[Jerry B]

The new memorial to HMS HAMPSHIRE and the Restored Kitchener Monument. He was one of those who dies when the Hampshire hit a mine the shortly after the battle of Jutland. 737 crew and passengers died.

[don_kihotis7]

Nice thread guys, keep them coming.

[Sarge]

Well all I've seen here is from the Allied side so here is one from the German side of WW 2.
This is on the island of Kreta and was put up by the Germans after the island was secured. It is different that almost all such monuments in that it honored those who fought on both sides. I took these photos while on Kreta for the 50. aniversary of the battle in 1991.
It has long ago fallen into disrepair as the eagle is gone and the monument has grafiitti pained on it the last time I was there in about 2005.
Well I guess no photo yet as I can't find it on this new computer.
Sarge

[CARL]

Thank you Sarge.

Pages 3, 4 and 8 of this thread show memorials and commemorative markers dedicated to the Germans who fell during WWII.

Carl

[VERSUCH]

Sirmione, Lake Garda